David Cohen, senior executive vice president and chiefdiversity officer at Comcast, writes in a blog, “These fun-damental tenets of net neutrality are also key componentsof our;core network and business practices;— they governhow we run our internet business. Our internet service is notgoing to change.;Comcast customers will continue to enjoyall of the benefits of an open internet today, tomorrow, andin the future.;Period.”AT&T echoes basically the same message in blog posts.

But proponents of net neutrality say those companies
— as Proschan’s comments suggested — do stand to profit
without net neutrality. And plenty believe they’ll make that
profit by doing exactly what they say they won’t do.

Jennifer Flanagan, vice president of marketing at Adtaxi,a digital marketing firm in Denver, says that, without netneutrality, ISPs very well could create a pay-to-play environ-ment either prioritizing content from websites who pay tobe in a fast lane or charging subscribers to access specificcontent.

“Assuming ISPs install some version of paid prioritiza-tion, the only real winners are the ISPs themselves — andyou could also argue the same for any large internet or mediacompany that can afford to pay the fees to put them in thefast lane,” Flanagan says. “These fees would likely be passedon to advertisers, increasing the cost for the same inventory,and limiting opportunities for small- to medium-sized busi-nesses to advertise in this space.”Ryan Singel, media and strategy fellow at the Center forInternet and Society at Stanford Law School, agrees and sayswithout net neutrality, “Ad agencies and online retailers canexpect ISPs will find ways to make getting to ISP customers

What does the end of net
neutrality mean for marketers?
No one knows how it all will play
out, but the possibilities demand
exploration and scrutiny.